Evolutionarily novel genes are expressed in transgenic fish tumors and their orthologs are involved in development of progressive traits in humans

Abstract Earlier we suggested a new hypothesis of the possible evolutionary role of hereditary tumors (Kozlov, Evolution by tumor Neofunctionalization, 2014), and described a new class of genes – tumor specifically expressed, evolutionarily novel (TSEEN) genes - that are predicted by this hypothesis (Kozlov, Infect Agents Cancer 11:34, 2016). In this paper we studied evolutionarily novel genes expressed in fish tumors after regression, as a model of evolving organs. As evolutionarily novel genes may not yet have organismal functions, we studied the acquisition of new gene functions by comparing fish evolutionarily novel genes with their human orthologs. We found that many genes involved in development of progressive traits in humans (lung, mammary gland, placenta, ventricular septum, etc.) originated in fish and are expressed in fish tumors and tumors after regression. These findings support a possible evolutionary role of hereditary tumors, and in particular the hypothesis of evolution by tumor neofunctionalization. Research highlights Earlier we described a new class of genes that are tumor-specifically expressed and evolutionarily novel (TSEEN). As the functions of TSEEN genes are often uncertain, we decided to study TSEEN genes of fishes so that we could trace the appearance of their new functions in higher vertebrates. We found that many human genes which are involved in development of progressive traits (placenta development, mammary gland and lung development etc.,) originated in fishes and are expressed in fish tumors.